The Early Horizon at Tres Zapotes: Implications for Olmec Interaction

Abstract

Modeling Olmec participation in Early Horizon interaction networks requires better understanding of the relations of Gulf Olmec communities with one another as well as with contemporaries elsewhere in Mesoamerica. We compare pottery, figurines, and obsidian assemblages from a recently isolated Early Formative component at Tres Zapotes with contemporary assemblages from San Lorenzo and Macayal, both in the Coatzacoalcos basin. Our analysis indicates that village inhabitants at Tres Zapotes interacted with populations in eastern Olman but also forged their own economic and social ties with central Veracruz and the Mexican highlands. This evidence suggests a heterogeneous politico-economic landscape in which multiple polities of varying complexity participated in overlapping networks of interaction, alliance, and competition within and beyond Olman.

Middle Preclassic Interregional Interaction and the Maya Lowlands

“…In this nuclear region sometimes called Olman, the Gulf coast Olmecs (hereafter GCO) established three major centers. In southern Veracruz, San Lorenzo flourished during the late Early Formative (late second millennium) and Tres Zapotes has a recently confirmed Early Formative component (Pool et al 2010); in Tabasco to the east, La Venta thrived during the Middle Formative (ca. 900-400 BC).…”

“…Prestige goods or wealth items of nonlocal raw materials, such as jades, likely signified something different from the shared ideas underlying architectural plans such as E-Groups, and something else again from the inscribed motifs and symbols on locally made pottery. Formative interactions and networks of interest have regionally varied expressions in Mesoamerica (Grove 1989;Inomata et al 2013, p. 470) and indeed in Olman itself (Pool et al 2010). Thus, the meanings of these objects in the Maya lowlands might differ from their senses elsewhere and, as seen in the preceding review of portable material culture, regional differences in occurrence are apparent in comparing north with south, and east with west.…”

“…In such discussions about early Mesoamerica, the focus is typically on the Olmecs and their wide-ranging influences (e.g., Cheetham 1998;Flannery 1968;Pool et al 2010). The Maya lowlands (the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico, northern Guatemala, and Belize; note that I largely omit Honduras) have played a negligible role in these conversations because of the generally low occurrence of so-called exotic goods in the region.…”

Formative Obsidian Procurement at Tres Zapotes, Veracruz, Mexico: Implications for Olmec and Epi-Olmec Political Economy

“…Tres Zapotes was founded in the Early Formative period, growing to a village of 17 ha by 1000 cal b.c. (Pool et al 2010). Hirth (2008:443-444) discusses two models of "centralized institutional procurement:" centralized political procurement and corporate calpulli provisioning.…”

“…Formative Obsidian Procurement at Tres Zapotes, Veracruz the round, two tenoned busts, and a carved serpentine column (Pool 2010). The number of monuments, their thematic content, and the areal extent of Tres Zapotes, second only to La Venta among Middle Formative Gulf Olmec sites, marks it as a regional Olmec center (Pool and Ortiz Ceballos 2008).…”